The Horn Dance
by Maia1
Summary: William dances in the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance at Christmas Revels in New York City in December 2040.
1. Introduction

**The Horn Dance** is a 100-word drabble/poem that takes place in 2040 in the **Gifts**-verse AU.

In it, William dances in the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance at **Christmas Revels** in New York City in December 2040.

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**Christmas Revels** is a celebration of the winter solstice in traditional folk music, dance, and ritual. This site won't allow links, but the Revels website is world wide web dot revels dot org. Or you can google "Revels" and find links. (There are Revels productions in cities around the U.S., and I highly recommend them. You can also buy CDs of Revels productions at the Revels online store.)

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A tradition at Revels is the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance. 

The **Christmas Revels** CD describes it like this:

_"The dance begins here in the distance; the dancers slowly draw near, then dance away again. Imagine a dim light, with six mysterious figures each holding high the massive horns of a reindeer. Their dance, still performed every year in the Staffordshire village of Abbots Bromley, links with the archetypal figure of the horned man in many cultures, and is one of the most important survivals of magico-religious ceremony in England. Nominally it derives from a fertility ritual performed for good luck in hunting the stag, but its deeper roots link--through the Hobby-Horse, Fool, and Man-Woman characters which have over the years danced beside the horned men--with the general "guising" performed throughout the ancient winter season of revels from All Souls' Day to Twelfth Night."_

But that description doesn't quite do the dance justice.

The music is a single recorder, a haunting melody. The dancers are six figures clothed in black, all holding antlers to their heads, and also, dancers representing the Hobby-Horse, the Fool, the Man-Woman, and the Boy Archer. The music begins softly, far away in the darkened theater, and then the dancers process in, dance their ancient spiral dance upon the stage, weaving in and out, moving in a spiral pattern, sometimes single-file, sometimes two lines facing each other, sometimes each antlered figure meeting another and gently touching horns. And then, they recess, the music getting softer and softer, fading into the distance, so you wonder that they were there at all...perhaps it was a dream.

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The background is important to **The Horn Dance**, but it has spoilers for the **Gifts**-verse AU. 

I don't think the spoilers will "spoil" **Gifts** in any way. Nevertheless, I've included spoiler space below.

The background is below, following the spoiler space. **The Horn Dance** itself (which is in the next chapter) contains no spoilers, but will make far more sense in context.

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**Background: **

-Spike was resurrected as a human after dying in "Chosen" in 2003. After becoming human again, he went back to the name William.

-In 2009, Buffy and William got married.

-In 2011 Buffy and William had a daughter named Emily and in 2014 they had a son named Henry.

-Dawn married an OC named Jason. In 2022 they had a daughter named Alison and in 2028 they had a son named Jonah.

-In 2029 there was series of catastrophic events involving the Key. Jason, Buffy, and Dawn all died that year (though not all at the same time.)

-After Dawn's death, William adopted Alison and Jonah (giving a whole new meaning to "Until the end of the world") and raised all four children (Emily, Henry, Alison, and Jonah) alone.

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In **The Horn Dance**, William is dancing as the Man-Woman in the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance at **Christmas Revels **in New York City in December 2040. 

12-year-old Jonah (Dawn's orphaned son whom William adopted) is dancing as the Boy Archer.

In the **Gifts**-verse AU, William was born in 1854, so in 2040 he has been in the world for 186 years, and his human body is 63 years old.

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	2. The Horn Dance

**The Horn Dance**

The predator in the dark dream-years  
had been as much female as male  
the child before the beast as much girl as boy  
the man since partly woman  
so right then  
he danced as Man-Woman  
though other masks as well  
Boy-Archer Hobby-Horse Antlered Ones prey too  
Fool he had always been it seemed  
as they wove around each other  
in and out came together fell apart  
line and circle line again  
each silent figure bore many faces  
his own everyone he had ever fought  
everyone he had ever eaten everyone he had ever fed  
everyone he had ever loved

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End file.
